


Between Shadows (A Dragon Age Tale)

by Daughterofthenorth



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Death, Dragons, Dread Wolf, Eventual Sex, F/M, Fantasy, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Goodbye, Loss, Lost Love, Love, Other, Romance, Sex, Sexual Tension, Skyhold, Sword Fighting, Sword and Shield, Trespasser, Trespasser Spoiler, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, commander - Freeform, sword - Freeform, vengeance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-30 19:00:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12115134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daughterofthenorth/pseuds/Daughterofthenorth
Summary: “BOSS!” A grey mass emerged from the darkness, expanding against the pale wash of the stars.Instinctively, my arms went over my head as I went tumbling into the earthy shake of an unraveling atmosphere. My head, legs, and bits of my stomach, spiraled against the slow motion slaughter of timber and stone. Skyhold was crumbling.Following the devastation of Skyhold, our Inquisitor, faces an uncertain dawn!  With a reappearing anchor intact-- inextricably linking her to Solas, the fall of the Dragon Age is not the only wolf lurking in the distance. Memories of Cullen haunt her now! His fangs: wet. His claws: deep... Leaving Bull as her only anchor to life outside the fade. In this psychological account of loss, romance, and legend, we view an internal perspective of what we truly face when destiny calls: ourselves.





	1. Skyhold

      “BOSS!” A grey mass emerged from the darkness, expanding against the pale wash of the stars. Instinctively, my arms went over my head as I went tumbling into the earthy shake of an unraveling atmosphere. My head, legs, and bits of my stomach, spiraled against the slow motion slaughter of timber and stone. Skyhold was crumbling...

      “Adraste’s tits, are you alright Inquisitor?” A familiar voice straddled the fold of consciousness. 

      “Varric?” I thought he was in Kirkwall… 

… _He was in Kirkwall..._

Blood began to spill into my mouth, curdling between my teeth as I clawed against the patched earth. Unclear of the passage ahead, I attempted to snake my way through the sea of panicked feet sprawling out before me. It was a difficult to maneuver.

       “BOSS? You alright?” The pressure of his fingers stung as he overturned me onto my back. Thrusting his frame over my person, I watched the falling stone impale him from every visual angle “...The fuck…” He turned left—his right eye fixed against the sharpening pain. My mountain. My shield. How did I ever endeavor to be worthy of such a friend?

Without grace, Bull pulled me onto my feet. I wavered there, barely standing, until a harsh strike against my left cheek reengaged the world in real time. The screams. The smoke. The fire. The blood. Nothing kept its shape… Everything we were. Everything I was. It all just kept unraveling. _Fading away_ …

       “Who has done this?” I growled.

       “I'll give you one guess…” Bull lifted his shield. “And it rhymes with Solas!”

       “Blood of the Maker!” Rainier’s form bashed through the charred-fog, shield overhead. Immediately, I detected the tinge of blood seeping into his armor. The color clashed against this moment in the most vibrant hue.

       “Thom?” I reached out, but Bull’s calf kept me at his flank. I stilled myself under the weight of his stern disapproval with great difficulty.

       “The entire courtyard has blown,” he roughly explained. “I warned you what might happen if Dorian got too close.”

None of it mattered now. “Thom, you’re—”

       “ _This?_ Flesh wound.” His wink did nothing to conceal his lie. Sometimes I liked him better when he was Blackwall… _Now that was a lie_. “Not to sound pressing, but we have got to get the hell out of here!”

       “No.” I lunged forward. “Sera. Krem! The others may still be in the tavern. We cannot just—“ My words were arrested by a fierce implosion.

       “By the Maker!” Rainer’s response underscored all visceral reaction.

 In one breathless rush of wind, the Herald’s Rest simply ceased to exist.

      “GET DOWN!” The wall of my chest hurtled into the fragments of stone below. Timber skewered everything in sight, running through the shoulder that once held the anchor.

        Less for the ringing in my ears, I was not aware of my body. All pain! All memory of life—Everything I was or could be, gave way to a scene of scattered flesh compiling beneath me.

       I rushed toward the blast, pulsating before imploding again, assaulting my world with its arrogance. But I cared not. The rage of its fury did not beset the fight within me. Or  _maybe it had_ …  and I stood, confusing loyalty to my brethren as an option to accept my fate. So much had happened, it was difficult to know when to move forward or to stop. Even when the Inquisition nearly disbanded, I could not help but wonder if it truly should. How much of this was Leliana, Cass, Cullen and me--and how much of us, was truly theirs? Such a fine line to be straddling and the ambiguity never wavered. Whatever the purpose that fueled within—I stormed the assault. In fact, it was not until my bloodied leg met a stone of warmth, did I halt.

Something soft pressed against the edge of my left shoe.

      “…lp?” a strand of formless breath tugged at my ankle.

      From first glance, I ascertained who it was writhing beneath the lifting smog. Not so long ago, this dashing gent had perched himself out side of the Chantry door at Haven, carrying a message from The Iron Bull.

      Immediately, I fell to the mud. Krem was holding his abdomen, cradling his knees to his chest. Unaware how to soothe his pain, I lifted Krem’s head onto my lap, wrapping his torso in my arm. I never got a chance to tell him how brave he was. How thankful I was to just know him… At once, I envisioned an empty chair, in a tavern that no longer existed, with no man there to stand upon it. My stomach wretched.  

     “Don’t you fucking die, Krem.” I shielded his wounds from the storm of falling debris.

     “Don’t plan on it Inquisitor,” he forced the words through slighted breaths.

     “WE NEED HELP!” I billowed my echo into the chaos. It was no use--like shouting at shadows to materialize.

Krem had begun trembling. His fingers winding around mine as if they were tethered to a fading reality that was no longer his. I couldn’t help but think what Cole would do in this moment…  If he would hold on or simply let him go. _No_. I thought.  _Cole._ My heart ached as the flames grew higher into the night.

     “Please,” I begged to the Maker. “Please.”

      Unknowing if it was the Maker, or life itself being clever-- a mage came rushing toward my call.  I did not know this person. In fact, there was a great deal who had pledged their life to me and our cause that I didn’t know. Even now, the valiant stood at my side. An action that bewildered me. Even as I sat drenched in their blood, I did not deserve it. Perhaps for the first time since the anchor, I understood the true weight of the hand Solas stripped from my person. How much it truly carried… But how could I hold it now? Beyond the reprise of falling stones, the sheer weight of all that had been lost here was merely a preview to what Solas was concocting. And judging from what I experienced in his fight with the Qunari--the only reason I was alive was because he allowed me to be.  

      With soft eyes, I observed the healing light fall into the breath of Krem’s gaping wound. Its vibrant hope clasped my throat. There was no certainty which would win: victory or vengeance? Solas needed me to hate him. He couldn’t live with himself otherwise. This message was clear.

      “I’ve got this.” she removed my hands. I was preventing her access to Krem's chest, but I could not move. “Inquisitor. I’ve got this!” My hands retracted, freeing my attention to Bull, whose knees sunk deep into the mud. His gaze cloaked Krem like a blanket of sorrow that would never lift. I waited for one humorous quip to levitate our fear, but for once—Bull was silent. His knuckles white against the strain of his hilt. His horns--calcified. His heart... Pounding. 

Hums of explosions began pacing themselves in the distance. Time was no longer on our side. 

     “We’ve got to go!” Rainier tugged at my shoulder. I ran the checks in my mind. Their faces like sun at dawn: Dorian was in Tevinter. Viv left yesterday. Cassandra was The Divine. Varric was in Kirkwall. Josie was in Antivia…  But _Sera_ …  _The Chargers_ …   _Dagna_ … _Cole… Leliana… Cullen._  My throat closed. _CULLEN_!

      “No…” my heart stretched against the fold of my lungs. “NO!” I scrambled to my feet, clumsily running toward the stairs leading to the main hall… that appeared to no longer to be standing in the distance.

       Halting, I ran my fingers through my hair—scratching at my face. Not only was this rubble severing me from accessing my commander, my bloody husband, but everything we had become. My mind reeled and stretched; its elasticity was waning. Catching my breath, I fumbled over pangs I could not begin to digest. Thoughts of Cullen dying alone… Tortured in fire, trapped in another bloody tower. His mind feasting on events he could not quell until the flames consumed him fully.

Anger inflamed my heart!

It Raged.

It broke.

It tore at my failing, blood-pump!

       Turning left, I pushed toward the stables. _The stairs will lead to the ramparts_. I repeated this over and over until it became an irrefutable truth...

       “Nice seeing you here, yeah?” Sera checked me into the side wall with her bow. Bull must have sent her. “What’s with you and things blowing up? First bloody Haven and now… Kablewie…” She smiled.

       Oh, how I ached to be her in this moment. A moment she would use to drive every arrow into the deserving-hearts of shitty “people.” Sera survived. The whole her! Not just her skin. It was a rare talent that I had yet to master. Even now—I knew she would walk away from this victorious. Perhaps the only one. 

       “This entire place is about to blow!” her voice strained against the combustion.

       “No. You don’t understand--” I attempted to maneuver around her, but she did not waver. “ _Cullen is still up there_ …” I screamed. The sounds of fire against stone rolling toward us caused Sera’s pressure to tighten.

She turned her gaze behind her and then directly at me. “Sorry love. No one is up there. Not anymore.” Her eyes fell downward in slow motion.

       “ _Stop_.” I pushed against her chest, but she would not relent. “Let me go, Sera.” The command was cracked down the middle. “By the Maker,” her firm pressure pinned me closer, “we can still save him!”

       Somewhere in the caverns of thought, I knew the ramparts were failing. I understood his tower housed the third explosion… I saw his chambers bleed in red, before I grasped what it meant. I distinguished what was happening… But my heart, it just—it stopped beating… or—I am not sure, but I had to…

        Taking down Sera at the knee, "Balls and tits," she cried-- I ran for the invisible ladder I had ordered to be placed. It was some distance away, but Sera was clever. There was only a small window of time before she would find me.

         Scrambling at the wall, I felt for the wash of wet rope or something to catch my grip. It was camouflaged at Cullen’s request for security purposes. _Fucking stupid idea_ , I teased the thought—trembling in the memory. _What use is a ladder no one can bloody find!_

         “Inquisitor?” Words cackled. Airy strings of ill formed consonants and vowels billowed deep within the smoke. I suspended my efforts for one moment only.

         “Jim?” Words were playing tricks with my mind. “He would live,” I grumbled. “I swear that bloody guard is everywhere.” Laughing at my flailing attempts to regain my wits. “Where is the bloody ladder?” With that my thumb finally bent against the quiet strands.

      Somewhere between being tossed and impaled, I had forgotten how difficult it was to climb without the use of both appendages. Tethering the rope between my palm, I pulled myself north slowly. Time was all I had left now, despite the fact it had nearly run out. Using my teeth for balance, I felt for the next wrung, keeping myself steady—with maker knows what.  

        “Maker’s breath. Stay where you are!” If any voice could have stopped me, it would have been his. Air returned to my lungs. If only for a second--I breathed.

        “Cullen, are you alright?” I shouted.

      His form was barely visible through the thickness of the smoke, and regardless how much I attempted to discern more than his outline, it was useless. I could not tell whether he was standing, or merely leaning against the wall.

        I chose not to recognize the hint of weariness spilling down all that was left of Skyhold.

        “The ladder is barely holding. By the Maker, Why ARE YOU STILL HERE?” His voice shook the heavens. “You need to go.”

I understood his tone all too well. Beyond his usual measure of fumbling charm lied a man with untouchable instinct. Cullen would never say goodbye, unless he meant it.

        “Don't you dare fucking say it.” I pulled myself up onto another wrung, and another, and another--before

        “Time to go, Boss,” Bull’s massive hands went up under my arms, pulling me from the wall. The sheer size of this man was astounding. Another explosion let off in the distance….

        “What are you doing? Cullen is up there!” Bull’s silence suggested it to be a lost cause. “Stop. Drop me here. Listen, Bull. I am not needed,” I snapped. “Gather our men. Take the horses. Find the Hero of Fereldan. She has been researching a way to cure the blight.”

        “No can do,” Bull’s emotionless response provoked me. “I don’t take orders from the dead. If you want it done, you are going to have to do this for yourself.”

        “I no longer carry the anchor. You don’t _need_ me anymore.” I pushed against the wall of Bull’s chest, with my shoulder blades. “But I need him. Please, let me go!” Bull said nothing and it would not have mattered if he had. There were no words left. Only action. 

        “You may not possess the anchor, Boss, but you are one. Not only to your men, to Thedas, but to that Dread Elven piece of shit—who still listens when you speak. You started this, Boss, and now it is YOU who must finish it. We cannot do that for you.”

       “ _No, Bull!_ ” He began to move me away from the ladder—from him. “Cullen,” I screamed until my throat bled, lurching forward, arms stretched out. “Dammit, BULL. STOP…. _CULLEN_!”

       “Get her to safety, Bull,” his breathless command pressed firmly into the loyalty of Bull’s character and I knew once and for all he would not relent. Cullen was quiet. Too quiet.

       “Will do, Commander.” Bull tilted his horn down, and just then… the world went with it.

       “ _I will_ …” Cullen’s words were muffled by the sound of stone bleeding against the severed backdrop. Everything went tumbling… Too fast.

       “No,” I pleaded. “Go back. I did not hear what he said--” I kicked at every available inch of Bull I could find. “ _What did he say_?” Bull’s non-response stood sturdy as I flailed. He only paced forward at a momentum to swift for my mind to gather.

      “SERA! Thom? Krem? FUCK! After everything I have done, you just--- stand there?” I swatted toward them. Bull swept his fingers under my knees, to force me against him--holding me like a child.

        I was no longer aware of time as he trudged toward dawn. His hefty steps, sinking unevenly in the snow. Perhaps it was hours, or merely seconds—I could not distinguish the lapse. Not as everything behind us began to plummet into the mountain. Dust returning to dust. Night returning to dawn. Skyhold returning to Solas. All in that order.

       “The ramparts…” My eyes filled with elements of salted fury. “They’re gone. _Bull_ ,” my words were failing--my mind with them. The snow. The sky. The world… It was all scrambled up, spinning in a wash of heat and ice…

       With my head against Bull’s clavicle, I felt the last of my strength leave me. Limp, my eyes went back and forth between breaths. Beyond the drum of Bull’s heart, I envisioned _Cullen, hovering over his desk—his hot fingers on my thigh_.

 _Dorian grandstanding beneath the splendor of well, himself_.

        “We’ve got to go back.”

 _Leliana was smiling at a pair of blue satin shoes we discovered at the Winter Palace_.

 _Viv. Oh, how I missed her. She was so solid. Nothing like me_!

 _Josie, beaming_.

      “"We’ve got to find him. His sisters… They are going to want to give him a proper _…”_

_Varric and Cole working tirelessly at being human—both of them._

_Cass, with her nose pressed in a book_.

         “Swords and shields! I still cannot believe it,” I mumbled to the pace of my unraveling thoughts. Bull’s steps quickened.

 _Even Solas came trickling through_. _He was laughing at Haven-something he did so little of_.

Bull was holding me, but I was letting him go. Cullen’s outline, fragmented and sickened by smoke held me in a space thicker than the fade. I couldn’t taste it.

          “Bull,” Rainier’s voice cut through. “Look.”

I felt the swirl of light inside of me expand between every bit of myself, until everything felt as it once did. It reminded me of the first moment Solas taught me to close a rift, and yet, I was much stronger and at peace.  

        “Bull?” everything slowed.

        “Just hold on, Boss. Hold on.”

        “Is that what I think it is?” Sera’s screeched. “Because I don't do impossible and that is impossible…and fuck impossible.”

        “ _Bull_?“ I tugged at his attention until his reluctant gaze trickled downward.

         “Yeah, Boss?”

         “ _I don’t know…” The light flickered beyond all thought. Beyond me. Through me. Around me. It was green and tasted of ash._

 _“_ Shit!” Rainier exclaimed, his weight falling backward.

 _“Bull… Bull we have to go back,”_ I pleaded.

"You better drop her!"

 _"We've got to go back."_ My spine sunk in the snow _._  I detected the tone of blades becoming unsheathed--metal at the ready. _"We have to go back. I don’t know what Cullen said_.”

 Everything faded to grey. .. 

 

               

 

 


	2. The Dread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "For a man of awkward articulation, Commander Cullen knew exactly what he wanted."  
> As Bull and the others flee a crumbling Skyhold, something peculiar in Alyria activates a hidden Eluvian. While he and the others fight to protect her, Alyria revisits her first sexual experience with Cullen before succumbing to the reality left in place by the Dread Wolf.

_“There you are!” Cullen projected, leaning against the brim of his desk. It was not often I withheld his undivided attention, especially as our focus had moved toward Tevinter. The days following the Winter Palace had been grueling, to say the very least. However, the lack of bodies unevenly dispersed throughout his quarters made his intentions clear. Maneuvering in closer, he let off a smirk._

_“What **exactly** did you think was going to happen here, Commander Cullen?” I leaned against the door; my only hand pressed firmly against the wall of his chest with the intention of drawing him near. He mindfully edged in closer, lifting my thigh to accommodate his hips—keeping me entrapped under a stronghold of pressure and the weight of his impenetrable brow. “ **I see** …” For a man of awkward articulation, Commander Cullen knew exactly what he wanted. _

_The warmness of his breath hovered over my mouth, wetting my senses as the pressure from my thigh moved inward. “Are we not supposed to be working? Saving the world and all…” I reminded with increased breath._

_“If it pleases you,” Cullen flirted. “So, Dorian’s report was most interesting,” Cullen explained while his fingers folded down the top of pants,using his finger to trace the outline of my pelvis. “He stated a certain hobo wolf, his words not mine, located the sister orb that fell to Corypheus…But” His hands went up under my tunic… I could barely think._

_“But?”_

_“He cannot unlock it. Something is preventing him. Dorian thinks it’s you.” Apparently the anchor died after he severed it from me._

_Wrapping both legs around his waist, I tugged nape of his neck, pulling him inward—brushing his many furs onto the stone floor. Cullen’s grip tightened at my neck—his lips most attentive to areas that so often go undisclosed. I released a breathy sigh into his mouth, feeling the warmth of his tongue on mine as it elevated my senses._

_Without thought, I clawed at the remainder of his clothing. So many feelings went wafting about and I was content to let them twirl, as if caught in the ever pull of an unforgiving tide. How many moments had I fantasized his mouth on my breast? His fingers on my neck? My… I paused. In the uproar of tension, my eyes fell open. I remembered what I was. What Solas had made me._

_“Lyra…” Cullen paused—noticing a shift in my responsiveness. The way my name went rolling from his tongue provided him with an unfair advantage. “Please don’t.” I glanced toward my missing appendage, then again at his concern.... Embarrassed._

_Despite my belief that Solas loved me, he spent most of our time together attempting to disprove me. It was only after he determined me indifferent to my culture and his expectations, did I provoke passion. This contrasted with Cullen, who spent most of our time together trying to believe I was real. He validated me in ways that sated the primal being within. A being only Bull ever truly got wind of...._

_“By the Maker, do not hide yourself from me.”_ _He dropped my legs to reform his strategy._

_With attentive care, Cullen slowly began undressing my tunic. I admired his persistence._

_My heart pounded with the rise and fall of each, relenting, clasp, until the warm cloth fell slowly from my breast._

_“It is a bit different without clothes on,” I warned—my stomach twisted with panicked knots as he moved closer toward my injury._

_“I sincerely hope so…” his left-sided smirk sent a wave of heat to my cheeks, before his lips embedded themselves deeply into all the spaces of my insecurity._

_After Solas removed my arm, the thought of another man wanting to touch me-- left me broken. Much to the disapproval of my life-mate, Bull, who found women without confidence poor company—even when they were the ones buying the drinks! Not that he ever gave up on me. That beast of a man had me in the arena day and night, with a sword—refining my insecurity into a weapon. I never did inquire on the nature of his reeducation past Haven, but I often wondered if he was not attempting to “cure” me of an old Dalish curse._

_With gentle grace, he slid the soft fabric from the edge of my shoulder kissing it furiously, pulling at my waist. When the garment fell, I was exposed—but he did not relent. The fever between us compounded until I was swept under. It did not matter what I was missing: inside Cullen, I was whole._

_“I want you,” he declared between gasping breaths— My hand slid down the slope of his chest, pulling him into me, until all space was covered and washed with heat and skin. “You cannot fathom how long I have wanted you!”_ _Light began to deliberately trickle through the lid of consciousness, no matter how firmly I pressed against the fold. My mouth opened, but letters were beyond me. I fought against the fade... but he was gone._

The cloak of adrenaline seeped from me, ushering the landscape of my injuries into full focus.

Suddenly, I was aware of the wooden shard sitting jagged within my shoulder.

I felt the discomfort of blood flushing into my mouth from my stomach. It had clotted into grimy chunks of stone and ash, lacing the soft portion of my gums… 

The smallest breath came with difficulty as well, expanding the bones in my chest: a couple of ribs were notably shifted.

And... My heart had been removed.

A firm warning pressed deeply into my calf. It was only when I felt a wash of powder cover my right arm, did my eyes open. Right before us, a familiar shape emerged through what appeared to be a snow-covered Eluvian. Nothing but raw anger and confusion swept through me as his form solidified--setting my abdicated arm aflame. 

                Bull took a clumsy step over me, straddling my body between his legs at the expense of my right finger. _Fingers…_ My eyes jolted toward the snowy mass concealing them. Impossible—I attempted to lift the snow, watching it move underneath.

                “I think she is coming to,” Krem’s whisper strained. If I had not been emptied of all reaction, I would have thrown my arms around him.

                “You are alive,” I mouthed.

                “Don’t move,” his voice sharpened.

 I half-wondered if Bull and Thom’s response to protect me was more habitual than necessary. 

                “Look at you,” Sera was the first to address him. “You know he means business when he is wearing shoes!” She nudged at Thom who buried his laugh in his beard.

They were no match for Solas or the animal he was becoming—I prayed to the Maker they knew. Ah _the Maker_... He and I had become close despite the irony, given my Dalish roots and cultural indifference to the shem dogma, but there it was. Me the herald. Him, the Maker. During my travels, I had become uniquely aware that life was far more complex than cultural construct and one-sided ideologies of power. It extended far beyond sexual preference, race, magic, The Chantry, and any subsequent dichotomous line the Dragon Age had produced. Not that it mattered. Despite the amount of wisdom we had gleaned thus far, it did not prevent her heroes from continually chasing their assess around in circles. Cullen was still dead. 

Thom followed Bull’s lead, placing his left leg over my face, shielding me from all angles. The thought of Solas being meters from my person sent a sickness through my veins that I could not dispel. I had originally sought to redeem my friend. A conjecture proving difficult as time progressed, due to his manufactured efforts to create an enemy in me. However, I could not logically inject the death of all who remained under the stones at Skyhold through the scope of his fatal character flaw. Palming the snow, I begged to be thrown under—into the archway, with Cullen’s breath inside my lungs. His weight upon my hips. 

                “Bull?” Solas’s usual tenor of velvet and power scraped against the icy terrain. He appeared… confused. “I assure you, I mean you no harm... How, friend, did you activate the Eluvian?”

                “Yeah, magic-mirrors aren't really my thing,” he reminded Solas of his dislike for _elfy-magical, crap_.

                “No, I suspect not. Regardless. Some matter of mana must have been exerted to activate it and you possess no mage.” Solas’s usual sound of pacing kept my wits coherent. I recalled the days I spent with Dorian in the library, listening to the sound of his feet skate across the stone floor. Something in the rhythm brought me to a familiar space, even now with his trudging through the snow.

                “Where is she? I overheard Dorian state in Tevinter, she is now married to Commander Cullen?” Solas gave no impression that he was at all remorseful for what had occurred. His usual-calm, dug through me.

                “ _Was_ married to Cullen,” Bull corrected, nudging me into him with his ankle.

Those words! My stomach began to siege under the weight of emotion, sending sparks of fury to my suspected right hand.

                “Mmm,” Solas projected as if he was surveying the vista. “I am sorry to hear it. He was a good man, but, such are the casualties of war. However, you did not answer my question. Where is she?”

                “ _Such are the casualties of war_ ,” Thom murmured, directing his focus toward the source of his inquiry.

                “Lethallan?" Solas could scarcely believe it. " _What have you done_?” Solas’s raged.

                “What have _we_ done?” Thom snapped. “ _Are you fucking serious_?”

                “Solas.” Bull checked Rainier’s aggression. “Not sure what you were expecting to achieve when you blew up a fucking castle, but the outcomes of a shit-ton of falling stone is usually not life.” Bull kept an even grasp on his inflection, given Solas’s power. I watched him defeat an entire company of Qunari, with his hands folded neatly behind his back--turning them to stone

                “I gave you plenty of time to get her out. I timed the explosions as such to assure your safety!”

                “Tell her that,” Sera retorted. _She needed to tread lightly_. 

                “Get out of my way,” Solas commanded. The powder under his feet brushed my face--its cool sting bracing the fever burrowing inside. In truth, part of me hoped Solas would succeed. In the very least, it would set Thom, Sera, Bull, and Krem free from moments like this. I placed my hand over Bulls shoe, quietly requesting he let me go.

                “Not today,” Bull replied, shaking me off.

                “Preventing me from tending to her injuries proves what exactly?” When they did not reply, Solas reframed his question. “You know full well, I could remove you myself.”

                “Then why don’t you do it? Because we were once your friends? Because we would have died for you? Because some of us already have?” Solas did not reply. “Who do you think is going to be inside of her to greet you when she wakes up? Bull shrugged. 

                “I fail to see your logic and we are wasting time!” The tip of his toe was at my nose.

                “Logic. Right." Bull laughed. Memories of them playing mental chess as we chased the High Dragon in Crestwood flitted about. Those days were so far beyond me, I could scarcely recall the beauty of it all. “You won that game, but I am about to win this one. If I remember right, it was basically  _you_ who bestowed the anchor upon her, allowing her to become Inquisitor without all the facts. You, who encouraged her to develop feelings for you, and then deserted her when she no longer could give you what you needed. _You_ who removed her culture and her ability to trust--from her reflection. You who tore her arm from her person, removed her title, blew up her stronghold… And now _you_ have just fucking killed _her_ husband. He was the only thing she had left. _Here_ ,” his battleaxe fell to Solas’s feet. “Just finish her off, would you…” Nobody moved. “I promise you, _Wolf_ , she won’t feel a fucking thing.”

               Solas’s breath was audible from below, and I could not surmise whether he would attempt to explain his actions or kill them. For some inescapable reason, whenever he drew near, the feeling in my arm tingled in pain as if the nerves were reconnecting inside of me--wishing to fight. 

             “Solas…" The letters came in time. "Just go.” I spat the blood from my mouth onto the crystalline, white surface. Pushing Thom’s leg aside, I peered up toward his face. He was in clean, shimmering armor—unscathed and intact.  Not at all like the storm of destruction he proved himself to be. Not at all like me. Ragged. Bloodied... Dead.

            "Lethallan. I can...

            " _Save me_?" I died a little. "From what? _You_? Can you save me from _you_ , Solas?" His flawless expression remained unscathed, but this came at no surprise. Solas carried the vast swarm of his emotion in his eyes. They were, in of itself, as old and ancient as my people--and vastly more complex. “Can you bring back the dead?"

            "Cullen--" 

I clawed in the snow, preventing him from speaking further. My bones shaking from the obliteration of bones and soul, sloughing from inside of my person.

            "I MEANT ME!" I corrected. "And you will do well not to speak his name. His name doesn't belong to you." My broken body prevented me from charging at him, but it did not hinder my ability to speak. "Don't you see? _Don't you all fucking see_? I am not enough! I wasn't enough for _**you**_ ," I pointed toward Solas, whose color went ill at my charge. "I am not enough for Thedas. And I was sure as shit, not enough for Cullen. So, either do as Bull requested,” I pushed the blade toward his feet, “or just fucking go.” I released my head back into the powder. "I am over either way." 

Solas made no attempt to address me. His sorrowful demeanor bore little impact as he turned toward the hidden Eluvian, looking behind his right shoulder, one last time. I understood he was hurting, but I could not justify his pain. Not this time. Perhaps not ever again. It was swallowing me whole. 

             “Maker preserve us,” Rainier blurted, unsure what to make of this moment. Both of his arms were folded behind his head.

             "Soon we will all discover if he will," Solas remarked. His flawless expression shimmered in the swell of the rising sun. "And you're wrong, Lethallan." My grey-eyes refused to brighten. "You are the only thing that has ever been enough..." 

S _uch a thing to declare to the dead_. I spat a mouth full of clotted blood onto the snow below. 

 


End file.
